Lucy Kemp-Welch (1869–1958)

Lucy Kemp-Welch was born in Bournemouth, England, the first child of Edwin Buckland Kemp-Welch, a solicitor. She showed artistic talent at an early age and began her formal art training at the Bournemouth School of Art. In 1891, she and her younger sister Edith moved to Bushey in Hertfordshire to study at Sir Hubert von Herkomer’s art school. In 1895, while she was still a student, her first large oil painting, Gypsy Horse Drovers, was exhibited at the Royal Academy, bringing her into the public limelight. She became
the foremost painter of horses of her time, especially of working horses, and her work constitutes a record of some nearly vanished breeds. Her paintings can be seen in many public collections in Britain, including Tate Britain and the Imperial War Museum, as well as in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Lucy may be best-known as the illustrator of Anna Sewell's classic novel Black Beauty, first published in 1915. She also painted other animals, flowers and landscapes, and in 1914, was named president of the Society of Animal Painters. At the start of World War I, she was engaged to illustrate the famous British army recruitment poster, "Forward! Forward to Victory -- Enlist Now," showing a mounted cavalry soldier, his horse charging at a full gallop, brandishing a sword. Lucy took over management of the Herkomer art school in 1905, teaching at it and running it until 1926, first as the Bushey School of Painting and then, after relocating it to her own home, as the Kemp-Welch School of Animal Painting. From 1926, she focused on depicting scenes of gypsy and circus life, spending several summers following Sanger's Circus.